Nights Like This
by CycloneT
Summary: On nights like this she curses Derek Morgan for getting under her skin. Morgan/Prentiss


On nights like this Emily wonders how she let herself get caught in the web that's turned her life upside down. It's easy to blame circumstances, hormones, lust, and _him_, but in the end she knows that there is no one to blame but herself, and that's the part that bites. She tosses and turns, and eventually gets out of her warm bed and potters around the apartment, picking up knick knacks, putting them down in places they don't belong, sitting down, getting up, working out, cooling down, exhausted, weary, but moving, always moving.

On nights like this her brain won't stop churning, imagining the 'what ifs', 'maybes' and 'if onlys' of the clichéd situation she still can't believe she fell into, until her head aches almost as much as her heart. She tries to soothe them both; first with a glass of red to slow down her tumbling thoughts, and then with whatever chocolatey sin she can find in her cupboards. Neither work, not that she really expects them too, but she knows she's in trouble when even chocolate can't ease her heart.

On nights like this she curses Derek Morgan for getting under her skin, herself for letting him, and both of them for the fools they are for believing they could ever keep the sex impersonal. She tries to remember when they stopped having sex and started making love, but the moment always eludes her. She knows that it was a gradual thing that caught them both unaware, so she forgives herself a little for not realising until it was too late.

On nights like this she makes him leave her bed and go home, even though everything in her screams at her to let him stay. She ignores the hurt in his eyes and keeps her own shielded, and is both grateful and resentful that he understands and allows her this mercy. She knows that it won't be much longer before the bough breaks and he gives voice to what has grown between them, and she dreads that day because she doesn't know how to respond.

On nights like this she thinks she can almost pinpoint the exact moment when she fell in love with him, but she wishes she couldn't. She hasn't quite worked her way up to wishing she didn't love him, but she's slowly getting closer. Not because he is a bad man, or that he would ever hurt her, but because who they are and what they do means that the job will always come first.

On nights like this she considers how she would react if the rules and regulations of the bureau didn't exist. She wonders if she would embrace the change in their relationship and everything it would mean, or if she would push him away and retreat, like she has so many times before. It bothers her that she doesn't know the answer, because she thinks that if she loves him then nothing would be easier. She knows the fault lies with her, not him; that she's seriously screwed up when she can't even find happiness in her own fantasy.

On nights like this she mocks herself for the coward she is for not being brave enough to tell the world – and him – how she feels. She thinks he might know, because she knows that _he_ loves _her_, but she can't be certain. The part of her that wants to surrender to him hopes that he does, but the other part, the untouchable, jaded part that protects her from hurt, prays that he's oblivious. She knows that he's aware of this other part and tries to accommodate it, and that makes it so much harder to turn him away. But she does, because she doesn't think she merits being loved so thoroughly by a man who deserves so much more than she's been giving.

On nights like this she closes her eyes and imagines the life they could have together, if only serial killers, paedophiles, terrorists, and FBI regulations didn't exist. It's a happy life, and there are children and pets and the whole white picket fence experience. There are birthdays and Christmases and a sense of family and belonging that comes from being a cherished wife and mother who has no idea that the face of evil is more likely to look like the next door neighbour than a bogeyman, and she wants it so bad she can taste it.

On nights like this she allows herself to break, just a little, and never so much that she can't put herself back together by morning. She mourns for everything she doesn't have, everything that she should have, and everything she's too scared to take.

On nights like this she eventually slips back into a bed that she imagines still smells like him, and allows herself to hope that one day, somehow, she will find the courage to make it all hers.

End


End file.
